Category Archives: “Oh, Ben” Stories

A week ago I was married. It was possibly the greatest day of my life, and I had a blast seeing all the smiling faces of these people who love us (or just like us, that’s cool too). Here’s a small taste of the proceedings, from the first dance:

Believe it or not, search for Lawless Duel on the Googlemeister and that video is the no. 1 hit! Thanks to everybody who made it, and special thanks to everybody who posted their pictures on Facebook. It’s been a blast re-living those memories with you.

I never thought I could love Nicole more than I already did, but one week into the marriage and I’m glad to say I was wrong.

Also, today I submitted my business license for Penciled In Designs! I’m now legitimate business!

So, here’s a strange predicament: Thursday, I updated my site to WordPress 2.5 (mmm-mmm-mmm, good) and on Friday, 2.5.1 comes out, so I upload it to my site. Coda, by Panic software, is my FTP manager of choice. I think they added a new option when uploading, but I didn’t pause to take it in. When you upload a directory, you can either Replace or Merge. I have always just had the option to Replace, which, believe it or not, replaces the files that are new and leaves all the other files alone. Turns out this the behavior I want is now Merge, and Replace destroys the entire directory, and then rewrites it.

That means all my photos I’ve uploaded to my blog are lost, as well as the themes I’ve collected o’er the years. It’s not a huge deal, but if you were wondering why my site was sporting Kubrick until this morning, that’s why.

Last night, Nicole and I went to a fabulous dinner at the Paso Robles Inn and then followed it up with a refreshing soak in the Paso Robles Hot Springs. It was great; we looked great and had great fun. I know I don’t get many chances to dress up. And so, I wore a white button-up shirt I think I haven’t worn since high school.

I believe my exact words at dinner were “It feels like I’m getting strangled ever so slowly by a precocious midget.” After unbuttoning the top button, I just felt like I had something stuck in my throat. It didn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to cough it up, and then at 2 this morning I woke up and it was nearly unbearable. In addition to the sore throat, I started getting the chills… Seriously, the “something in my throat” seemed like it grew into a family of four, inhabiting my throat.

Good times.

So, I took the day off of work, which is neat, but I really wish I could be there. And the day seems like it’s nap, watch Buffy and Angel, and hydrate us to the poor house.

Here’s another thing: people say “Yeah, it’s going around.” How do they know? Perhaps I have too small of a sample size to figure that out, given I probably am around less than a dozen people in my day, but seriously.

Yep. New Years ’08 at midnight. It was quite crazy. I was very nervous. Nicole was very surprised.

You’ll notice in the second photo above, that I was not expecting her to laugh in my face. And I hope she said yes to what I think she did, because I don’t remember actually asking anything that night. It could have been “Oh my gosh, some midgets ran by and clocked me in the knee with a baseball bat. Oh, look what I found! Isn’t this pretty? I think I’m going to keep it all for myself!” Funny thing is, though, she won’t give it back.

So, I’m very very sorry if you came to my blog earlier and found… well… anything somewhere between a blank screen and a screenful of coder gobbledygook. Turns out I broke WordPress when I thought I was upgrading it.

Tip for everyone, including myself: TURN OFF ALL PLUGINS BEFORE UPGRADING WORDPRESS. I seriously hope I’ve learned my lesson.

In other apologies: the last week or two, I’ve been trying to work up the courage to call an advertiser for the Women’s Press back and apologize to her for how I treated her on the phone. Suffice it to say, it was nearing press time for the paper, and I was nearing the end of my rope when she asked me to do some simple changes to her ad. Basically, I feel like I was a jackass. I’m meaning to call her up any day now and apologize.